Manchester terror angels
These good Samaritans ran to the aid of others during the Ariana Grande concert bombing
It was supposed to be the experience of a lifetime for many young teens and children as their parents took them to American pop star Ariana Grande’s concert in Manchester, England. Social media feeds were filled with the excited youngsters enjoying the concert – for many their first – not knowing that just as Ariana was singing her final encore, British-born Salman Abedi, 22, was entering Manchester Arena with a nail bomb in a suitcase. As families started to stream out of the venue, an almighty bang was heard and it took a few moments for people to register what was going on – there had been an explosion in the foyer of the building. As children screamed, running in terror in every direction, not knowing where was safe, a few very brave souls were racing towards danger in a valiant effort to help those in need. While many were trained to assist such as police, firefighters and paramedics, there were also ordinary people who disregarded their own safety to help others at the scene – ordinary people who are now being heralded as “Angels of the North”.
One such “angel”, Chris Parker, 33, is down on his luck, living on the streets of Manchester, and was just outside the arena foyer, where he often begs for change, when he saw the flash of light from the blast. Rather than run from the horrors that lay within, he chose to go inside to see who might need assistance.
“[The blast] knocked me to the floor and then I got up and instead of running away, my gut instinct was to run back and try and help. There was people lying on the floor everywhere,” he says. “I saw a little girl… she had no legs. I wrapped her in one of the merchandise T-shirts.”
Chris then saw a woman with severe head and leg injuries who needed his aid: “She passed away in my arms. She was in her 60s and said she had been with her family. I haven’t stopped crying. The most shocking part of it is that it was a kids’ concert.”
Another homeless man, 35-year-old Stephen Jones, also hurried to assist the concertgoers.
“It’s just instinct to go and help if someone needs your help – and it was children,” he says. “It was a lot of children with blood all over them, crying and screaming. We were having to pull nails out of their arms and a couple out of this little girl’s face.”
Meanwhile, Ariana Grande’s mother, Joan, who had enjoyed her daughter’s concert from the front row, jumped into action as the events unfolded. Rather than rushing to safety, she ushered young fans backstage and did her best to comfort them until they were told it was safe to leave.
Outside the 21,000-seat venue, Paula Robinson, 48, and her husband were at the nearby Manchester Victoria train station when they felt the huge explosion and saw a group of traumatised teens running towards them and shouting. Determined to get the kids to safety, Paula gathered them up and took charge.
“We ran out,” Paula explains. “It was literally seconds after the explosion. I got the teens to run with me.”
The kind-hearted grandma from West Dalton, near Manchester, led the frightened group to a local hotel and used social media to let worried friends and families of concertgoers know she had unaccompanied teens at the hotel, sharing her mobile phone number to help reunite people.
“We have got about 50 kids with us waiting to be picked up – they are safe, we will look after them. We have taken as many kids as we can to Holiday Inn – we will keep them safe and stay with them,” Paula wrote on her Facebook page. The message was then shared to Twitter.
These heroes personify the spirit of not just Mancunians but all good British people in the face of pure evil. The next day, crowds gathered in the centre of the city, and around the country, to share their grief and show their strength and defiance against the attack and any other would-be terrorists.
The Bishop of Manchester, David Walker, summed up the feeling as he addressed the big crowds, saying Abedi represented “the very few, but we are the many. We are Manchester”.
‘The most shocking part of it is that it was a kids’ concert’